Her Mantle
by SomethingOutOfNothing
Summary: Brennan has a date, but he sees some keepsakes in her apartment that makes him try to evaluate her relationship with Booth.


Disclaimer- not mine, the closest I've got is DVD's.

A/N- this is my first Bones fic. I think I did all right. Let me know what you think.

Her Mantle

There was a ring at the door as Temperance Brennan rushed to answer it. "Steven, hi." She said to her date for that night. " I'm extremely sorry about this, but I just got some remains in the lab, they seem to be at least 2,000 years old. I was examining them and I got particularly emersed in my findings, and as a result I am running late getting ready." She said sounding excited about the remains, but not so much about being torn away from them, Steven thought to himself.

"That's fine, I can wait," he said looking around her vast apartment.

"Okay, well, I just need to take a shower, I wont be long. Then we can go." Temperance said walking away. Steven sat down on her couch and looked around again, but this time something blue on her mantle caught his eye.

He stood up and walked over to the mantle, so that he could further inspect the object that was drawing him to his current position, standing in front of the mantle. The object that had caught his attention had been a plastic Smurf. 'A token from her childhood maybe?' Steven thought to himself. But as he continued to look at the keepsake, he saw a picture out of the corner on his eye, and he figured that the Smurf had something to do with the man in that picture.

In the picture Temperance was sitting in a booth at a place he recognised to be The Royal Diner. Across from her was a man; that Steven thought he recognised from somewhere but he couldn't remember where. They were looking at each other, in the way he had seen old couples that had been married for forty or fifty years look at each other. The man appeared to be telling her something, and they both seemed so emersed in the conversation, that they didn't even notice the picture being taken.

He turned to the next object, which was a plastic pig. It looked like an object that a child would buy their parent for Christmas because they had spent all their pocket money on lollies the day before. Steven carefully picked it up and turned it over in his hands. On the bottom of the pig, there was one word scrawled in an adult's handwriting, and Steven would be willing to bet that the man in the picture wrote it. If he was a betting man, that is. (Seeing as everything on the mantle seemed to be related to him in some way or another it would be a pretty safe bet.) The one word on the bottom on the pig- was Jasper.

Steven found that he couldn't help but look at the rest of the items, the next of which was a framed newspaper clipping, that was titled 'Unlikely Duo Solve Serial Killer Case'. He was pretty sure he had read that article before, but he quickly read it again anyway, and as he reread it, a name stuck in his head. Seeley Booth. In the picture attached to the article, Temperance was sitting on a bench out side what looked like a courthouse. Next to the same man that was in the other picture he had looked at. Seeley Booth-Temperance's partner.

Feeling a bit discouraged Steven moved on the next item, which brought a frown to his face. It was a small sprig of mistletoe. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know the detailed story behind that particular keepsake, but he was pretty sure he could guess.

Just as Steven was about to go on to the next item (which he was pretty sure was a baby's dummy,) Temperance came out of the bathroom. Steven looked at the clock and realised with surprise that only ten minutes had passed since he had arrived at her apartment. Temperance looked down at herself and self-consciously patted down the dress she was wearing. "Wow" he said, probably because it was the only word he could form at that moment.

"We should leave now or we might miss our reservation" Temperance said after about twenty seconds, breaking the tension that was filling the room.

"Ah, yeah. Lets do that." Said Steven, who still hadn't fully regained the ability to speak, which was earning him some odd looks from Temperance, so he quickly pulled himself together.

After just ten minutes in Temperance Brennan's apartment, Steven knew that there was no way he was ever going to win against Seeley Booth. So he wasn't even going to try, because he knew, if it came down to it, Booth would _always _win. That was the way it was always going to be, because first and foremost they were partners. And that's what partners did-they put each other before anyone else. Even themselves.


End file.
